Traversing new territories with ixigo

Ixigo is India’s leading online travel platform that helps users book flights, trains, and bus tickets and organizes their trips. The company was acquiring Confirmtkt, a leading online train discovery and booking platform and needed capital support to partially fund the acquisition.

The company was keen on leveraging venture debt rather than raising equity to fund the acquisition primarily to avoid equity dilution at a less than optimal valuation. During the same time, the travel industry was recovering swiftly from the first wave of COVID-19, but the situation was still uncertain. We were tracking the business for several years and were impressed by the resilience shown by the founders as well as the company’s improved financial metrics even during the pandemic. Trifecta backed the company for the acquisition and was able to structure the funding timelines in sync with the company payouts to Confirmtkt. This further optimized the financing cost for the company.

Our funding gave the company enough optionality to be able to raise the equity round for the combined entity at a better valuation. This acquisition, announced in Feb ‘21, helped the Ixigo group to consolidate its presence in Tier II, III, IV markets, and reach a combined user base of nearly 200 million, with more than 35 million monthly active users.